So Michael Applebaum, onetime mayor of our fair city who was forced to resign in 2014, has gone to jail. He got a year for soliciting and accepting about $35k in bribes from business people who were applying to get land rezoned for their purposes. What bothers me is that Applebaum never manned up in the sense of admitting guilt. He, to this very day and regardless of the fact that he intended to be, in this words, “a model prisoner” who would dedicate himself to doing good deeds, has contended that he has been set up and sold out by an assistant who accepted immunity in exchange for testifying against Applebaum. The judge, in handing down the jail sentence plus two years of probation, noted that one aggravating factor in the case was Applebaum’s failure to admit guilt and thereby take responsibility for breaking the law.

I wonder how other convicts will perceive and handle Applebaum. I’m sure that his stated intention to be a model prisoner doesn’t sit well with convicted felons with whom Mr. Applebaum will be forced to do time. Given his son’s statement re. his father’s fragile situation as far as his mental health is concerned, it remains to be seen if we’ll hear any more about Applebaum until his release date comes around.

Speaking of corruption in politics, there’s another mayor in trouble. That’s right, Mayor Denis Corderre, whose ambitious schemes for our fair city include lighting up the Jacques Cartier Bridge, decorating the mountain with over 100 granite tree stumps and the deconstruction/reconstruction of a park named after another of our mayors, the man who argued that the Olympics could no more cost Montrealers tax money than a man could get pregnant, Mayor Jean Drapeau.

Terry Mosher aka Aislin’s famous cartoon below shows an obviously pregnant Drapeau on the phone to the late Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the abortion rights advocate. (Btw, I’m sure in some lab facility somewhere at least a few scientists are experimenting with the notion of impregnating a male.) One never knows, but Drapeau’s “prediction” turned out to be totally off base – hence the term the “Big Owe” for our picturesque but still incomplete Olympic Stadium.
Anyway. The plan to renovate Parc Jean Drapeau, it has just come to light, will require the axing of at least 1000 mature trees.

“Picking a fight with a professional hockey player over allegedly anti-francophone on-ice slurs helped score political points for Denis Coderre in the run-up to the 2006 federal (election).

“As a Liberal MP in the dying days of Paul Martin’s brief minority government, Coderre pounced on an episode that occurred during a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Phoenix Coyotes a month earlier. Coyotes captain Shane Doan was given a misconduct penalty, allegedly because he’d cursed one of the francophone officials as “f—ing French.” Despite Doan denying that he uttered the offending words and being cleared by the National Hockey League, a campaigning Coderre waged a bid against the Alberta-born player representing Canada at the upcoming Turin Games for showing anti-Quebec bias.”
– The Montreal Gazette, April 04, 2017, from an article by Allison Hanes.

Leaving the obvious racist, Doan aside because I don’t see this as being an issue here –
Corderre appears to be up a creek without a paddle after first denying and then admitting that he had indeed received the cheque which he deposited into his bank account and failed to declare as revenue on his income tax return. Further, he lied a second time with some kind of far-out supposed explanation for his first lie, that is his original sin in denying that he received the money in the first place. I believe Corderre’s explanation for this, to be kind, “alternative fact”, was that he had had dental surgery and was a bit woozy and didn’t understand what was being asked of him.

1 Comment

What should bother you Jerry is that the former mayor has so far been the only major conviction.

Yet how strange that the former Anglo and Jewish mayor was the only one found to be engaged and then convicted for corruption so far (be it for a relatively small amount compared to some of the others who engaged in such things)…

Granted he is guilty. What of other much bigger perpetrators involved in this?

And most importantly – as Don Macpherson has pointed out with respect to internal leaks (where there should have been none) – it appears justice as it relates to corruption in Quebec is not necessarily blind. And is that a good thing?

Does the recent article in The Gazette by Macpherson not trouble you at all?

With regards to Michael Appelbaum – my impression is that he has basically admitted guilt and intends to reform himself. Though for legal reasons (probably on the advice of his lawyer I think) he chose his words rather carefully…